On Sunday (March 8) it is International Women's Day. A global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. Even though we think diversity in all aspects should be celebrated every day, we have taken the opportunity to do some self examination.
During the past week several media outlets have reported on the lack of gender diversity in public and private Swedish companies. Dagens Industri looked at 50 of the largest Swedish tech companies and found that they on average and compared to publicly traded companies have a lower level of gender diversity in their board of directors. The average among Swedish listed companies is 34% (according to a report from Allbright published in sept 2019) and the average among the 50 Swedish tech companies Dagens Industri looked at was 19%.
Currently, in the Alfvén & Didrikson family* the average number of board seats held by women is 39% and among senior management the average number of women is 31%.
We believe diverse companies do better and we will continue to encourage our investee companies to aim for diversity in all aspects. Including, but not limited to, gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. In the Board of Directors, in senior management and among individual contributors.
We will follow up on gender diversity annually and continue to work towards the goal of reaching 50/50.
/ Your A&D team